


The Old Gods Stir...

by elaiel



Category: Cthulhu Mythos - H. P. Lovecraft, Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Canon Compliant, Gen, Haunted Houses, Horror, Lovecraftian Monster(s), Psychological Horror
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-14
Updated: 2019-12-14
Packaged: 2021-02-26 21:00:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,779
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21795266
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elaiel/pseuds/elaiel
Summary: Harry was used to haunted buildings...This building however was different. It felt old, old and tired and had an air of hopelessness about it that seemed to pull the warmth out of the air. He was familiar with the feel of dark magic, but this seemed colder, less dark and more....simply evil.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 13





	The Old Gods Stir...

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [The Old Gods Stir...](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28574760) by [Borsari](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Borsari/pseuds/Borsari)



> Originally written for a Halloween challenge but not finished in time. Be warned, this is straight up horror, with Cthulhu canon levels of horror.  
> For ease of reading, the name Ó Conghaile was later anglicized to O'Connelly.

Harry was used to haunted buildings. He had been well acquainted with most of the ghosts at Hogwarts by the time he left and was on speaking terms with the three ghosts at Grimmauld Place.  
This building however was different.  
It felt old, old and tired and had an air of hopelessness about it that seemed to pull the warmth out of the air. He was familiar with the feel of dark magic, but this seemed colder, less dark and more....simply evil.  
The hallway was dark, the only light coming from the lumos charm he had cast immediately on walking in. Being honest, he thought, the light did not do the building any favours, only showing more of the decay that had befallen it. The floor was tiled with ancient glazed terracotta tiles, some with a pattern, a simple coat of arms, but many with cracks and missing corners. The walls and ceiling had been plastered and the walls papered, but little of the paper remained and the visible plaster was cracked, crumbling and heavily water-damaged. Brickwork showed through on the walls and the laths of the ceiling showed through above his head.  
He shuddered as a drop of water hit the back of his neck and ran down his collar and he pulled up the hood of his cloak. The building was freezing cold too.  
Most of the doors were missing and the few which remained hung askew from broken hinges. It was therefore pretty straightforward to clear the rooms one by one as he made his way through this wing of the building. Whoever had warded the building so heavily that it disappeared from both landscape and memory had not bothered to put any kind of preservation charm on it. The last remains of worm eaten furniture and crumbling fabrics lay in sad heaps in every room. The library was a sad mass of black mould and rotten parchments. Even magical books would rot eventually.  
A light moving ahead of him startled him for a moment, until it clarified itself into the glowing form of a wolf, his partner Ó Conghaile’s patronus which trotted up to him and spoke in the young man’s broad Irish accent.  
“Nothing in the west wing, ground floor. Meet you middle of the centre wing.”  
It disappeared.  
Harry sighed. It looked like whoever had left this building behind had left little to explain who they were or why it had been needed to be locked away. He grabbed a notebook from his pocket and made a quick sketch of the coat of arms on the tiles in the hallway. He could always check from a pensieve later, but making a note always helped solidify things in his memory.  
A distant rumble made him look up, but as quickly as it started, it stopped and he was not sure whether it had been thunder or whether something had collapsed in the house. He sent out a quick patronus.  
“Ó Conghaile, report!”  
He waited. Nothing stirred. He gave it a little longer, but when no responding patronus had appeared after a full minute, moved forward at a quicker pace.  
He cleared the last few rooms on the ground floor of this wing as fast as he could and at the end of the corridor which led into the main house he turned towards the centre. If this was a typical pure-blood mansion, then the centre of the main part of the house would be made up of receiving rooms and probably a great hall rather than a ballroom considering the age of the property. This part of the building was stone-built, rather than brick, and the walls of this corridor were smoothed and carved stone, rather than the plaster of the east wing. He took a moment to look at the carvings, which were a double band of interlaced Celtic style ribbons at waist height and then almost at the ceiling, over a metre above his head, an odd band of what looked like a sea themed motif of ships, kelp, kraken, merpeople and other things that he could not identify.  
The rumble came again, much closer and this time he was certain it was inside the house. A third rumble was followed by a man’s scream and he took to his heels, running towards the source of the noise before it petered out again. Silence fell and he stopped, listening hard. The only sound he could hear was an intermittent dripping of water somewhere ahead and...the faint sound of someone breathing hard, panting as if they had run a marathon. He made his way forward cautiously. If it was Ó Conghaile, then the man was obviously not in a position to contact him.  
The panting began to hitch, became harsh gasps and then sobs.  
“Nox.” He murmured, pausing to let his eyes accustom themselves to the sudden darkness.  
It wasn’t completely dark though. From a wide doorway ten or more metres ahead, a faint blue-green glow spread across the width of the corridor. He watched for a second. The light flickered as if some large and supple things had moved in front of it and again, the scream rang out, echoing down the corridor. Harry strode forward, that was definitely Ó Conghaile. 

When he was 9 metres away, the light flared and flickered again, Ó Conghaile screamed. 

At 7 metres, the scream faltered into a strangled gasp.

6 metres, the light was almost extinguished by something that cast writhing shadows.

4 metres, the gasping became a wet gurgle.

3 metres, a tumbling thud like a body falling.

2 metres, a slick slithering and a flare of green light.

1 metre...sudden blackness, cut only by a wet rasping noise.

Harry paused, then turned into the room.  
All was black. Somewhere ahead and to his right Ó Conghaile, or whoever it was, was breathing in bubbling gasps and pants. He waited. Nothing else stirred.  
“Lumos!”  
His wand burst into light, and instantly he wished it hadn’t. Ó Conghaile, probably Ó Conghaile, lay a crumpled heap on the floor, limbs at angles a body shouldn’t be able to make. One outstretched hand reached towards the door as if he was trying to pull himself away from the wide crack that rent the floor of the great hall, just a metre or so beyond him.  
The room itself was painted from floor to ceiling with glyphs the like of which he had never seen before, like nothing he had ever studied in Ancient Runes, painted in something at least the colour of dried blood. He found it hard to focus on some of them, as if they moved and twisted under his gaze and one repeated motif made him want to vomit every time his eyes skittered over it.  
On the far side of the rent in the floor, a lone figure, apparently mummified by time sat the lone seat on the top table, at a table covered with plates of gold and blackened silver. Rot had taken the contents of most of the plates, but the human skulls on one or two of the plates suggested the meal was a scene of horror beyond even Voldemort’s tastes.  
“The watcher…” Ó Conghaile managed to gurgle out the words. “The watcher...in.. the deep.” He coughed wetly. “Ha...rry…”  
Harry scanned the room, but it was empty except for Ó Conghaile and the corpse of the diner.  
He walked the few steps to take him over to Ó Conghaile, the floor felt tacky under his feet, it seemed to stick a little to the soles of his shoes with ever step and every time he stepped on one of the runes, which was unavoidable, a sickly feeling buzzing sensation went up through his body. Reaching his partner he bent over to examine the man. His breath was laboured and bubbled wetly with each breath.  
“I’ll get you out of here.” He said. “Let me stabilise you first.”  
“No!” The single word was clear, adamant.  
“I need to stabilise you to move you.” Harry told him, beginning to move his wand in the first sweep of a diagnostic charm.  
“No!”  
To Harry’s horror, Ó Conghaile’s mangled arm swept up and knocked his wand aside. He felt blood spatter across his face and the lumos charm’s light was cast in shadow as it was swept downwards. From the rift a deep rumble, as of something massive moving, echoed upwards and the floor vibrated under him.  
“They are...huh..here…” Ó Conghaile coughed out a gout of blood. “I am...lost…He is watching me!”  
Harry pulled his wand back up, but Ó Conghaile was rolling back towards the rift.  
“I cannot…!” He screamed and before Harry could move to grab him, he caught Harry’s eyes in a last horror-stricken stare and deliberately threw himself into the rift.  
As Ó Conghaile’s falling scream echoed out of the gash in the earth, it seemed almost as if every glyph on every wall writhed and glistened. On the dais, the eyes of the mummy opened with a sickly green glow.  
“The old gods,” The mummy’s voice was dry and scratchy. It held out a hand to Harry in abject supplication. “The old gods stir...and will not let me sleep!”  
The sudden scent of urine and a disgusting warm wetness let Harry know his bladder had emptied itself unbidden. His vice grip on his wand was enough to make his hand almost spasm in pain as he backed out of the room, not taking his eyes off the mummy. In his peripheral vision, at the crack in the floor, something black and huge roiled in the gap, but he did not take his eyes from the sickening glow of the mummy’s gaze until he was out of the room. Then he ran.  
Outside he collapsed in a drift of fallen leaves, panting and wiping humiliating tears from his face. Jenkins, who had been waiting outside, came running.  
“Where’s Ó Conghaile?” He asked, looking at Harry with shock. “What happened? Why didn’t you send a patronus.”  
Harry steadied himself with a supreme effort of will. He knew beyond a doubt why Ó Conghaile had not been able to send a patronus and why he was not sure if he himself could ever cast one again.  
“Gone.” His voice shook. “This…horror...” He swallowed. “This place is cursed beyond….”  
Jenkins stared at him as Harry stared back at the building with a haunted gaze.  
“We ward it again.” Harry ordered finally. “We ward this place out of memory and existence and hope to Merlin that whatever is in there never wakes again!”


End file.
